Rep Thomas Massie
(Picture: Photo by Bryan Woolston/Getty Images)A Republican congressman is facing rampant criticism after he appeared to compare potential vaccine passports to a brutal identification system used in concentration camps during the Holocaust.
Kentucky representative Thomas Massie sparked backlash after he tweeted a photo of a person’s wrist with numbers tattooed onto it. During the Nazi reign, prisoners sent to concentration camps were tattooed with numbers as a way to identify them.
The photo was captioned: “If you have to carry a card on you to gain access to a restaurant, venue or an event in your own country...that’s no longer a free country.”
While he later deleted the tweet, it did not escape the attention of CNN reporter Andrew Kaczynski, who shared a screenshot of it.
Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie deleted a tweet Wednesday night comparing vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. pic.twitter.com/QTSSH7eqpY
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) August 26, 2021
As a result, Massie received huge criticism from opposition politicians, academics and members of the public who were disgusted by his comments:
Why does every Republican compare wearing a mask or getting a vaccine to the Holocaust when the head of their party is a fascist who doesn't read much but kept a copy of one of Hitler's books by his bed?!?!?!!? https://t.co/0yeFlXUA5H
— Democratic Coalition (@TheDemCoalition) August 26, 2021
My grandparents survived the Holocaust, and for you to compare public health measures that save lives to genocide is enormously offensive. Trivializing the Holocaust is antisemitic.
— Nurit Baytch 💉× 3 (@NuritBaytch) August 26, 2021
Rep. Thomas Massie - who voted against funding to help schools teach students about the Holocaust and antisemitism - tweeted (and deleted) this meme tonight. Care to comment @GOPLeader? pic.twitter.com/8ULy0Wgg7P
— Andrew Weinstein (@Weinsteinlaw) August 26, 2021
Black people were enslaved. The Indigenous suffer genocide. Japanese Americans were interned. Jews suffered Holocaust. No one compares their suffering to others
— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@QasimRashid) August 25, 2021
Yet GOP claim masks are slavery, genocide, & Holocaust—combined. The Privilege to make minor inconvenience an atrocity
Wearing a mask is not the same as the Holocaust. Nor are vaccinations. Come on world, there are ofcourse difficulties in accepting harsh realities but to equate public health measures with genocide is insulting and beneath us.
— Dr Ben Janaway (@drjanaway) August 26, 2021
If you compare mask mandates or anything related to #COVID19 prevention to the Holocaust try reading about the Holocaust.
— Eric Garcia for Congress (@EricG1247) August 26, 2021
"As the baby flew upwards, the Nazi sneered, “If you can’t walk, you will fly". He then aimed his gun, pulled the trigger and shot the flailing infant dead."
As in other countries and regions, lawmakers and businesses in Kentucky are debating whether certain venues should force people to prove they have been vaccinated in order to enter them, in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19. Those against the policy state concerns about their civil liberties.
And it is not the first time a Republican politician has caused outrage by likening measures to control a global pandemic to a genocidal regime. In May, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who represents Georgia, called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “mentally ill” for supporting mask mandates and compared them to wearing “gold stars” - used in the Holocaust to identify Jewish people.
Undeterred, she later tweeted out a news story about a supermarket chain that planned to allow vaccinated workers to go maskless and said: “Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi’s forced Jewish people to wear a gold star.”
In June, she finally apologised after she visited a Holocaust museum and learnt what actually happened.
That that backlash hasn’t made Massie think twice before making his own crass comparison is disappointing, to say the least.
indy100 has contacted Massie to comment on this story.
